April 2005

From NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies
Any debate or discussion about climate change starts from the basic fact that Earth’s temperature depends on the balance between how much solar energy the Earth absorbs and how much it radiates back into space. Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have completed a study of [...]

I’ve just watched episode 6 of Doctor Who and I don’t know what else to say but “Brilliant!” All the clichés about the Dalek’s struggle with stairs, the resemblance to a pepperpot and the ridiculous “sink plunger” were incorporated into a story which gave us a dalek with genuine menace. You’ll never laugh at the [...]

They’re back tonight!
To say that I’m excited would be something of an understatement. Mike Tucker, the BBC model unit’s miniature effects supervisor, has done some great stuff on this series and I’m really looking forward to seeing what he has done with the everyone’s favourite Dr Who monster.

I’m grateful to my friend Dave warnock for sendng me news of the increase in terrorist violence worldwide
The United States reported on Wednesday that terrorist activity in the world increased sharply last year with the number of attacks and dead more than tripling but that it was winning the global “war on terror”.
The US National [...]

Tony Blair has repeated several times the claim that the Attorney General’s advice was that the Iraq war was legal. No ambiguity, nuance or doubt about it. The government has until now refused to publish the legal advice on the basis that such legal advice is always confidential.
But now, after public pressure, media innuendo and [...]

I found this joke in today’s Methodist Recorder. Apparently it’s an old one, but I hadn’t heard it before and it made me laugh out loud. Hope it does the same for you.
Joseph Ratzinger, Hans Kung and Leonardo Boff arrive together at the pearly gates. Modestly, Ratzinger ushers Kung through the door first. An hour [...]

The Catholic Church has approved a position that adoption of children by gays does violence to those children. Blogger Joel Fuhrmann said he agrees that it does. I asked Joel if he were claiming that gays were violent toward children they would adopt. He said he wasn’t, that he and the [...]

The CIA’s top weapons inspector in Iraq has ended the search without finding any. His report also makes it clear that it is extremely unlikely that there was an official transfer of weapons to Syria, though accepts it is possible that some unofficial movement of small quantities of material may have occurred.
Nobody should be surprised [...]

“Look around you! Vernacular mass! Gay bishops! People talking to Protestants! This Church needs an enema! And Iâ€™m the man to administer it”.
Pop over to the John Heron Project and have a read. Go on, you know you want to.

A lot of conservatives, particularly Protestant evangelicals, protested that the United Church of Christ (UCC) “welcoming” ad unfairly portrayed conservative evangelical churches as excluding gays. Consider, however, that in 2002 Ellison Research published a study showing that 59% of evangelical Protestant pastors would not knowingly admit homosexuals to membership in their church, while [...]

In a speech today at St Paul’s Cathedral, Archbishop Rowan Williams gave his further support to calls for world trade to be fair and just.
“The scandal of our current global economy is not simply that it leaves children dying, that it leaves over a billion in extreme need.
“It is that it reinforces the assumption that [...]

The British National Party (BNP) has launched its manifesto. Now, I spent my teenage years growing up in the town they call home, so i apologise if this post lacks any pleasantries.
To put it quite bluntly, not only is it the scariest political agenda i’ve seen in this country in my lifetime, [...]

On many matters of moral sexuality, particularly homosexuality, the church tends to be unbending even in the face of modern learnings in the sciences, including medicine, biology and psychology. Other Biblical matters, such as the moral invitation to tithing, the calls to economic justice, or Biblical proscriptions against usury are not taken so seriously. [...]

A new way of assessing the relative merits of Britain’s universities is provided by Duck Density, which rates institutions according to the density of the waterfowl population on and near the campus. How come nobody has thought of this before?!
Thanks to Excited rainbow Girl for the tip.

Pray Without Ceasing is a new initiative of the Methodist Church
encouraging churches and individuals to focus on prayer over the coming months. Pray Without Ceasing is an initiative of the Churchâ€™s young people, who have called on the whole church to promote a year of non-stop prayer